Quote Originally Posted by Grizzley1 View Post
Little experience=little knowlage
if you believe that the only true knowlegde IS direct experience, yes. <sarcasm> so go ahead and burn all your books, because all of it is wrong, and stop reading these posts. the experiences that others relate mean nothing. the only thing that matters is your subjective reality.</sarcasm>

seriously though.. i dont know how many people can and how many people cant tell the difference between different finishing stones. in the end i think lots of people can find differences, and for whatever reasons (including and aside from the resulting finished edge) arrive at their personal favorite. but when it comes to a blind test of finished edges i also think there are also lots that wont identify subtle differences which are present.

im not trying to say that there are no differences. some people who really love their hones would be offended to hear that. (dont you dare say that about my XYZ). part of the problem with that test may be, as sham said, that you are not just trying to distinguish the effects of different hones but the effects of different hones as used by someone else, and used and stropped by others still.

anywas, what i was getting at is that i think second hand knowledge/experience from many people can teach you things that you may not learn with only your own limited and subjective experience. thats why we are here right?
dont get me wrong, i can see why someone would reject second hand knowledge for first hand experience. but when we all do that and still dont manage to arrive at a consensus some one somewhere (or maybe ev eryone everywhere) is missing something that they might learn from someone else. you cant really be rejecting all second hand knowledge, can you?